false 0 8 6 true 5807450 read 1 true 31294 currently-reading 1 true 31293 to-read 2 false 331458 1993 1 false 196008 inspirational 1 false 331402 thought-provoking 1 false 196110 kentucky 0 false 331461 1994 0 false 331462 1995 0 false 331463 1996 http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2513871 Howards End (Paperback) by E.M. Forster
bookshelves: 1993
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2513678 Howards End (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (B&N Classics Trade Paper) by E.M. Forster
bookshelves: 1993
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2513170 to: Stumbling on Happiness (Hardcover) by Daniel Gilbert
bookshelves: thought-provoking
I find myself coming back to this book again and again, and working it into conversations at work. I'm fascinated by the idea of temporal progeny, the self of the future, that we have a future self that is a child of our present self, and that we are willing to do things now for the benefit of ourselves in the future. The problem is, how we conceptualize the future is flawed, because they are unknown things that will happen that are beyond our control. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1411202 to: Voices From the Century Before (Hardcover) by Mary Clay Berry
bookshelves: kentucky
This is one of my very favorite books. Trunks of letters were found in Mary Clay's family home, an amalgamation of letters from the Field family to and from the Clay family. The letters were donated to the University of Kentucky, and over the course of two decades were matched to each other in chronological order. The result is the day-to-day communications between two closely related family, akin to tape recording phone conversations today. The communications paint a picture of what life was really like on a prosperous middle class southern farm, far different than the grand belle image conveyed by sterotypes.

How the family functioned and the consistency of human nature is a reminder that people two hundred years ago were not very different than people today. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1411095 to: Love Creeps (Paperback) by Amanda Filipacchi
Off-the-wall, quirky comedy about a woman who loses all desire for anything in life; she becomes flat. She has a stalker, who she becomes envious of because of his capacity for desire. In an attempt to bring desire back into her life, she decides to emulate her stalker, and becomes a stalker herself. The book takes a turn towards the absurd when the two men befriend each other, and the ensuing triangle becomes a managed relationship.

This is a fun summer read, pure escapism. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1411081 The Places In Between (Paperback) by Rory Stewart
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1410419 to: Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage (The Crosswicks Journal, Book 4) by Madeleine L'Engle
bookshelves: inspirational
I must admit a penchant for reading diaries, collections of letters and first person dissections of relationships. Madeleine L'Engle books for adolescents have always appealed to me, for they are not insulting to the intelligence of children. This book is written about her marriage to actor Hugh Franklin. What I found from this book was the knowledge that marriage is hard work, and that its survival requires work. It is, as the title conveys, a two-part invention. How you live your marriage is dependent upon how both parties shape it. Unless you come from generations of people who have been married for a long time, the tribal knowledge of how to make a marriage work is lost to successive generations, and the importance of marriage is devalued when your experience with marriage is that of failure. Success is always possible, but never easy. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1410328 Prodigal Summer: A Novel (Paperback) by Barbara Kingsolver
bookshelves: currently-reading
I'm struggling with this book because the pace is rather slow, and tying the characters together is difficult. ]]>